At its peak, the trading volume of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) reached $17 billion — $2.8 billion in August 2021 alone. These days, however, the vast majority of them are quite literally worthless.
In a new report published by dappGambl, researchers have discovered 69,795 out of 73,257 NFT collections have a market cap of zero Ether (ETH). Expressed in a percentage, that means roughly 95% held by over 23 million individuals are worth nada.
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The ones that still hold any value, of course, are currently a fraction of its purchase price. Notable examples include the following:
- Sina Estavi’s $2.9 million token of Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s first tweet (now $3,700)
- Logan Paul’s $1 million Bumble Bee NFT (now $2,700)
- Justin Bieber’s $1.9 million Bored Ape Yacht Club #3001 (now $80,000)
But what’s even more staggering than the “revelation” that NFTs are worthless is the misguided hype’s impact upon the environment.
“The minting process of NFTs involves certifying a digital asset as unique by making a transaction on the blockchain,” explains the report.
“Each minting consumes energy, just as any other operation in the digital realm does, though the amount of energy consumed by minting NFTs with little to no use case might be cause for alarm.”
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“To give a sense of scale, our study identified 195,699 NFT collections with no apparent owners or market share. The energy required to mint these NFTs is comparable to 27,789,258 kWh, resulting in an emission of approximately 16,243 metric tons of CO2.”
To put this all into context, 16,243 metric tons of CO2 (or 6,243,017 kilos) is the equivalent to:
- The yearly emissions of 2,048 homes (7.93 per home, according to the EPA)
- The yearly emissions of 3,531 cars (4.6 per car, according to the EPA)
- The carbon footprint of 4,061 passengers flying from London (England) to Wellington (New Zealand) — that’s four tons of CO2 per person, according to Air New Zealand
Check out the data for yourself below.
NOTE: All $$$ = USD
